Small launch vehicles grow up
Monday, 30 August 2021 15:13
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Why Relativity Space and Rocket Lab are both developing larger rockets that could vie with Falcon 9 and Vulcan Centaur for some classes of payloads.
Download your ‘News from the 36th Space Symposium’ special digital edition
Monday, 30 August 2021 14:49 Write a comment
The SpaceNews editorial team produced four show dailies, a nightly email newsletter and all-day web coverage during the 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs the week of Aug. 23.
Space firms see launch risk from low oxygen supply amid pandemic
Monday, 30 August 2021 14:20 Write a comment
One consequence of the coronavirus pandemic is showing up in an unlikely place: the space industry.
A summer surge in COVID-19 patients is diverting liquid oxygen from rocket launch pads to hospitals, leading NASA to announce Friday it will delay the September launch of its next earth-surveillance satellite by a week.
Oxygen chilled to its liquid form at minus 300 Fahrenheit is a crucial propellant for launch firms from SpaceX to ULA to Virgin Orbit. Now the industry is anticipating launch delays as patients on ventilators take precedence in the commodity gas supply chain.
"People come first," said Richard Craig, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the Compressed Gas Association, an industry trade group.
While oxygen supplies have grown tighter nationwide due to medical use of oxygen, the need is most acute in Florida where a surge in COVID infections have filled hospitals.
Some Florida cities, including Orlando and Tampa, have imposed water-use restrictions because some water-treatment plants use oxygen in the sanitizing process.
Labor shortages among commercial truck drivers, which must have specialized training to transport some gasses such as oxygen, have also compounded the supply bottlenecks, Craig said.
Rocket test launch for Space Force fails to reach orbit
Monday, 30 August 2021 14:11 Write a comment
Astra Space Inc. failed to reach orbit in its rocket launch Saturday, the latest setback for the maker of small rockets used to send satellites into space.
The company's 45-foot tall rocket took off unsteadily from a pad at the Pacific Spaceport Complex in Alaska, flew for more than 2 minutes and then suffered what Astra described as "technical difficulties."
The machine was carrying a test payload for the U.S. Space Force. Astra had its most successful launch in December, when its rocket reached space and then just missed reaching orbit.
Based in Alameda, California, Astra competes with industry leader Rocket Lab USA Inc., which has completed almost two dozen flights dating back to 2017 and is now busy working on a larger vehicle. Virgin Orbit, a private Richard Branson venture separate from Virgin Galactic, completed its first commercial mission in June.
Astra shares jumped 21% last week, after tumbling in July. The company, which recently went public via a special purpose acquisition company run by telecommunications billionaire Craig McCaw, said it had gathered valuable data from the flight and has more rockets ready to test again soon.
Announcement of opportunity to fly payloads on Spectrum microlauncher
Monday, 30 August 2021 11:52 Write a comment
Announcement of opportunity to fly payloads on Spectrum microlauncher
Space mission tests NREL perovskite solar cells
Monday, 30 August 2021 10:50 Write a comment
On a clear night, Kaitlyn VanSant will be able to watch her work whiz by. Knowing the success of her project, however, will have to wait until her tiny, temporary addition to the International Space Station returns to Earth.
"My family and I have definitely been looking up at night more frequently," said VanSant, who earned her doctorate from the Colorado School of Mines in materials science last year. Now a postdoctoral researcher with NASA, VanSant holds a unique collaborative appointment at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
The pairing of NREL and NASA continues a long-standing alliance between solar power and space. Specialized photovoltaic (PV) panels turned to the sun have been used to generate electricity for Mars rovers and space probes, but the manufacturing costs of these high-efficiency solar cells are too high for use on Earth. Researchers at NREL are testing ways to bring those costs down for terrestrial applications and transforming how PV technologies could work in space as well.
The latest test will evaluate the potential use of perovskite solar cells in space and assess the durability of materials used in those cells.
How AWS is opening up space with the cloud
Monday, 30 August 2021 10:49 Write a comment
Clinton Crosier, a retired U.S. Air Force major general who helped organize the standup of the U.S. Space Force, recently celebrated his anniversary of joining cloud giant AWS to lead its newly created Aerospace and Satellite business team.
Node 2 | Space Station 360 (in French with English subtitles available)
Monday, 30 August 2021 07:00 Write a comment
Video:
00:01:46
ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet takes you on a tour of the International Space Station like no other. Filmed with a 360 camera, the Space Station 360 series lets you explore for yourself alongside Thomas’s explanation – this is the Node 2 module. Node 2 is a European-built connecting module also known as Harmony that acts as an internal passageway and utility hub. Its exterior also serves as a work platform for the station’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, and has docking ports for spacecraft.
In this video, Thomas shows the different modules that Node 2 connects: Europe’s Columbus Laboratory, the
Countdown to Webb launch with new merchandise collection
Monday, 30 August 2021 06:20 Write a comment
Countdown to Webb launch with new merchandise collection
Delta II and SLC-2: A Remarkable Era
Monday, 30 August 2021 02:59 Write a comment
The launch of NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) on September 15, 2018, marked the end of a remarkable era for the venerable Delta II launch vehicle and SLC-2.
Virgin Orbit clears environmental review to launch satellites from Guam
Sunday, 29 August 2021 18:21 Write a comment
The Federal Aviation Administration on Aug. 27 released its final environmental assessment that found “no significant impact” for Virgin Orbit to conduct launches from Guam.
SpaceX ends launch hiatus with cargo Dragon mission
Sunday, 29 August 2021 07:25 Write a comment
SpaceX performed its first Falcon 9 launch in two months Aug. 29, sending a cargo Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station.
SpaceX launches ants, avocados, robot to space station
Sunday, 29 August 2021 06:51 Write a comment
A SpaceX shipment of ants, avocados and a human-sized robotic arm rocketed toward the International Space Station on Sunday.
The delivery—due to arrive Monday—is the company's 23rd for NASA in just under a decade.
A recycled Falcon rocket blasted into the predawn sky from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. After hoisting the Dragon capsule, the first-stage booster landed upright on SpaceX's newest ocean platform, named "A Shortfall of Gravitas." SpaceX founder Elon Musk continued his tradition of naming the booster-recovery vessels in tribute to the late science fiction writer Iain Banks and his Culture series.
The Dragon is carrying more than 4,800 pounds (2,170 kilograms) of supplies and experiments, and fresh food including avocados, lemons and even ice cream for the space station's seven astronauts.
The Girl Scouts are sending up ants, brine shrimp and plants as test subjects, while University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists are flying up seeds from mouse-ear cress, a small flowering weed used in genetic research. Samples of concrete, solar cells and other materials also will be subjected to weightlessness.
A Japanese start-up company's experimental robotic arm, meanwhile, will attempt to screw items together in its orbital debut and perform other mundane chores normally done by astronauts.
SpaceX launches Dragon Cargo mission to ISS
Sunday, 29 August 2021 06:44 Write a comment
A SpaceX rocket from Florida carrying part of a robot that could help perform routine tasks for astronauts on the International Space Station was launched early Sunday morning from the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center.
Launch of the resupply mission, with 4,800 pounds of goods for the space station, was at 3:14 a.m. EDT Sunday.
The robotic arm is the feature of the resupply mission Space Systems Command declares three GPS III space vehicles "Available for Launch"
Sunday, 29 August 2021 06:44 Write a comment
The U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command recently declared the eighth GPS III satellite as "Available for Launch." This significant accomplishment officially marks the third space vehicle within the GPS III program to be declared available for launch in the past three months.
GPS III SV06, SV07, and SV08 are now awaiting official call up for launch in Lockheed Martin's GPS III Processi